Simulation study and guidelines to generate Laser-induced Surface Acoustic Waves for human skin feature detection

•Key parameters of pulse laser that influence LSAWs are identified.•Practical guidelines to generate strong LSAWs are provided.•Simulation research on LSAW-based detection of melanoma was conducted.•Measurement resolution of mesh size and time step in the simulation is given.•Efficient bandwidth and minimal detectable melanoma size in the simulation are given.

Despite the seriously increasing number of people contracting skin cancer every year, limited attention has been given to the investigation of human skin tissues. To this regard, Laser-induced Surface Acoustic Wave (LSAW) technology, with its accurate, non-invasive and rapid testing characteristics, has recently shown promising results in biological and biomedical tissues. In order to improve the measurement accuracy and efficiency of detecting important features in highly opaque and soft surfaces such as human skin, this paper identifies the most important parameters of a pulse laser source, as well as provides practical guidelines to recommended proper ranges to generate Surface Acoustic Waves (SAWs) for characterization purposes. Considering that melanoma is a serious type of skin cancer, we conducted a finite element simulation-based research on the generation and propagation of surface waves in human skin containing a melanoma-like feature, determine best pulse laser parameter ranges of variation, simulation mesh size and time step, working bandwidth, and minimal size of detectable melanoma.